Writing For The B2B CMO w/ Drew Neisser
“I know my book isn’t going to be a bestseller,” Drew says.
So why did he write it?
Because although his book targets B2B chief marketing officers, a small, niche audience, all Drew has to do is attract the attention of a small slice of that audience to produce massive success for him and his agency.
In this episode, Drew drops a mountain of helpful tips as he talks about why his first book wasn’t the right book but how he learned from it, how he’s getting the word about his second book, and why he’s dedicating the next four years to marketing it.
LINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle:
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and to leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host Josh Steimle. Today, my guest is Drew Neisser. Drew is the founder of Renegade and award winning B2B Branding Boutique. He also started CMO Huddles, the fastest growing membership community exclusively for B2B CMOs. Drew's second book Renegade Marketing: 12 Steps to Building Unbeatable B2B Brands launches October 5th. Drew has helped dozens of CMOs unleash their inner Renegade in told the stories of more than 450 marketers via his podcast, Renegade Thinkers Unite. Drew writes for Ad Age and has had articles published in Fast Company and Forbes. Drew, welcome to the show.
Drew Neisser:
Hey, Josh, it's so great to be here.
Josh Steimle:
It is fun to reconnect, Drew and I first met at the Content Marketing Conference. I can't remember where that one was hosted, maybe that was in Las Vegas, maybe it was in Boston, but I know it was at that event that we first met in person. And I was familiar with your book, The Periodic Table of, wait, you give the title.
Drew Neisser:
The CMOs Periodic Table, no worries.
Josh Steimle:
The CMOs periodic table which I was very interested in because I was also working on my first book, which happened to be a book Targeting CMOs. And so and there were that many books out there for CMOs, are about CMOs.
Drew Neisser:
That's right.
Josh Steimle:
This was one of the few ones, so that's how I got connected there. And when I saw you at the event, I was like, I going to talk to Drew, because he knows about CMO books. So that's how we got started, but here I am telling your story. Let's have you tell your story a little bit Drew, who are you? Where'd you come from and what do you do?
Drew Neisser:
So I was thinking about your episode with Les McKeown. And he describes these seven stages, if you will. And I feel like, I've been as I was listening to that show, been through all of them, but I'm going to fast forward in my career will go back. So 2008 was kind of a pivotal year and helps explain sort of everything that's happened in the last 13 years for me. So I've been an agency guy for a long, long time. I had started Renegade with Dentsu, way back in '93. But in 2008, I made the genius decision to buy Dentsu out. And my rationale is going to buy him out because a huge percentage of our business was Japanese, that business was going to be leaving, and there wasn't really a basis for the relationship. So I closed October 31st, 2008. So you may remember, that was the start of the worst recession since 1929. Add on top of the fact that 70% of our business walked out the door with in the name of Panasonic, which had been -- we've had him for 15 years, so we doubled the average. But anyway, we also got stiffed to half a million dollars from a client who had lost money in the Madoff scandal. So you take those three, and this is an agency, we had as many as 100 people a year or two before. We also had about $10 million in non-recurring revenue coming through the agencies. So we were -- it was like [Inaudible] [0:03:12] and then all this happened. And we had to scale down incredibly, incredibly quickly and I didn't know if we would survive. So there were a couple things in the survival strategy that will get to this book that are really important. So one was we got to focus, and we're going to have to focus on both what we do and who we do it for. And two, we are going to have to make as many friends as we possibly can. And so that's when I started writing. And I started and I made a commitment in 2008, I was going to interview at least somebody and write an article every single week for 52 weeks, and create a body of work of somehow. So we did focus the agency, we went from this sort of full service with a really strong emphasis to guerilla to just social media for a short period of time. And that was that survival helped us and then from there, we gradually morphed into a B2B Boutique that you introduced us as, but it was the writing that really sort of helped create this path. We did make a lot of friends, those friends, some of those became clients. And that 100 interviews, eventually, after a two year period, someone said, hey, Drew, you've interviewed 100 CMOs, there must be a book in there. And that's how I got to my first book. And it wasn't like, oh, I should write a book. It's just oh, there's 100 interviews, there's got to be a book. And, it's important, we should talk about that because your motivation for writing a book is really important.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, I love it when that type of stuff happens when you're like, you know what, I've already got this content sitting right here. I can turn this into a book. There's a book right there. And I can trick you sometimes because you think I'll just turn that into a book and then you realize it's a lot of work even to turn existing content into a book but tell us a little bit more about how that process unfolded then with that content that you had there, and you said, okay, I'm going to turn this into a book, what was the turning point to say, I'm really going to do this?
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, it was sort of like I looked at the articles. And I started to think about the topics that we covered in. And I, that's one of the sort of the periodic table idea, because that was, that's a nice framework. And I should have said, oh, okay, well, we're going to have 64 elements. And these are those sort of the basic elements that every CMO needs to have. And then we're going to go all the way through the periodic table to these sort of crazy things that great CMOs do on the far right of the table. And I had about, I would say, 55 of the 64 interviews were done. And I went back to each of them, I had to go back to every single one of them, because I hadn't planned ahead and gotten permission, which I did after that. So I had to go back to every single one, I have to get every single quote approved. We sort of rewrote it to help make them a little more focused. And I finished this book took me a year and a half, I never stopped working. This was just something I did on the weekends and nights and I got the book done. Again, this is not the way most people do it. And then I said, oh, you know, a lot of these are really senior CMOs, I mean, I got the CMO of visa, I got the CMO of GE and there -- they probably want me to have a real publisher. So finished book, actually, not only finished book, laid out finished book, because I had one of our creative directors laid out. And we shopped it as a finished book. And sure enough, Pearson, a division of Pearson said, oh, this is really good. We like it, we'll support it, it feels like it might have a really good educational market, and they're big in the educational market. So, you know, somewhere, I think November 2015, it goes to market. Two weeks later, they close that division of Pearson.
Josh Steimle:
Man, you've got a good sense of timing.
Drew Neisser:
I do. I mean, you know, the whole thing. So there was so many lessons learned. But I think the biggest lesson I learned from that book is, you know, just because you have content doesn't mean you should write a book. You should write a book to solve a problem. And I think the first book solved a problem for a certain type of marketer who said, marketing's challenging, there are a lot of elements, tell me what they all are and I'll figure out what the right mix is. And that's, that's a certain group of people. But in the second book, what I said was, I'm going to do the opposite. I want to solve, I want to tell you what to do. And it's going to be Drew based on all those interviews, take some of the wisdom that I've earned, and solve a problem. And that problem is that B2B Marketing has gotten ridiculously complicated, but not more effective. Now, there's a whole story on how I got to the second book, but I'll take a break there for a second, because there's a lot to digest there in, I think, because I was listening to some of your other authors. And they all had really good reasons. I don't think, I had as good a reason to write my first book, other than get a book out.
Josh Steimle:
Well, this is interesting, because this is the conundrum of having existing content is you can get into a spot where you say, I've got this content, I should do something with it. And yet, if you were going to go back and say, I have no content, what books should I write, it might not be that book. And so where do you want to spend your time? Do you want to spend your time on the book that you say, well, I'm going to publish it? Because I've got the content sitting here or do you want to focus your time on, I'm writing the book that I should write. With my first book Chief Marketing Officers at Work, it was a little bit similar in that. I had an idea for the book I wanted to write, which was more like a digital marketing for the CMO type of book. But then when I started writing it, I realized, I didn't really know anything about CMOs. And then this opportunity came along to write this book CMOs at Work. And I thought, well, what a great way to get to know CMOs, I can go interview a bunch of them and put it together in this book. And then I'll know CMOs, and then I can go write the book that I really want, right? Problem is, I wrote the first book, and I never wrote the second book. I never got around to it. And so that was, I kind of got trapped a little bit in there. And I always tell people, I'm like the first book I wrote was not the book I should have written. It was great. It was great experience. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't the book I wanted to write, nor the book I should have written for my business. That was great, but yeah.
Drew Neisser:
And we're exactly the same place in that one. And I really what it was is -- what's the shortest distance to a book that I took that, but not necessarily what's the shortest distance to a book that will help our business or a book that I want to write pick one. And it's funny because we had been very close in around their period of time, there was a woman I knew who was an expert in certain aspects of B2B marketing, and we actually pitched widely on B2B marketing for dummies, and they were ready to go with our proposal and then we realized neither was wanting to write B2B for Dummies. And so we backed away from that. And that was sort of what okay, well, I'm not going to write that one, I better get another one out there. And so that's what pushed me to the CMOs periodic table. But I got to say, I learned so much. And one of the things that came -- this is what's really interesting. So you write the book, and then you have to go speak about it. And people kept saying to me, Drew 64, we can't deal with 64. Narrow it down, what are the characteristics of a successful CMO? And that's when it came up with a cat's framework. And started to speaking about that, and I would use examples from the previous book. But in this book, the cat's framework of courageous, artful, thoughtful and scientific it is that -- it's what holds the book together. And so there is continuity from one book. So sometimes you just have to do stuff to get the experience. And I think that's what the first book really did for me.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, several years ago, many years ago, I had the opportunity to interview David Neeleman, who founded JetBlue. And I asked him this question, hey, if for the young college student, which I was at the time, I was really asking for myself, I said for the young college student who wants to be an entrepreneur like, but doesn't really know anything, what's your advice, and he said, jump into something and get dirty, doesn't even matter what it is jump into something and get dirty, and then you'll figure out something you can do there that will lead you to somewhere else. It feels similar with a book, that there is something to be said for just jumping in and writing something, almost anything. Because maybe you'll finish that book, maybe you won't. But no matter what, you're going to learn a lot.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah. I mean, you just can't get paralyzed by fear. You got to do it. It's funny. I met David Neeleman, on a JetBlue flight. And this was an incredible experience. And it got me to go there because the story is so unbelievable. He goes every seat and talks to everybody. He talks to me and he says, hey, so what's your name? I said, Oh, Drew, and said, what are you going to ski? I said, yes. And when have you been here before? I said, yeah, I was there in 2002. And I broke my shoulder at the Olympics. So it was an interesting thing. So two hours later, we're getting off the plane. And David, and he's saying goodbye to everybody. He said, Drew, be careful out there. I mean, he remembered my name. He remembered the conversation. I mean, he's just sort of one of these unique individuals who is, yeah, you got to go in and get dirty, but doesn't hurt if you just a brilliant guy who really has a great deal of empathy with people.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, yeah. That's a great story. Cool. So talk to us. And so in between your first book coming out periodic chart. It's hard for me to remember this title for some reason I keep wanting to reverse it.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, there you go.
Josh Steimle:
But in between your first book and your second book. Were you -- when you finished the first book? Did you already know you're going to write the second book? Do you have an inkling that what, there's something else I want to do? or how did it come about that you realized, there's a second book here that I need to write.
Drew Neisser:
So I, in my mind, I always knew I was going write three books. And I knew what the third book was. And that book by the way, still haven't written and that's the book that I really want to write. But it's because it's on Ben Franklin. And it's a whole goofy other thing that I think will be really fun for middle kids, but it's just a completely offshoot as nothing to do with business. So this book sort of evolved in a kind of an interesting way. So I kept interviewing, I never stopped interviewing, I'm over 450, I think I'm close to 500 now on CMOs, and it just kept doing those interviews and kept learning. At the same time, our business, we made another pivot maybe five years ago, where we said, All right, social, I don't like what's -- where social is going as a service, pretty much, I don't want to just do that we're way too far down the chain, let's move up strategy. So we started moving up to strategy and brand. And they said, okay, and I don't want to do this for everybody. Let's just focus on B2B. So we made a pivot four to five years ago. And I made a pivot in my interviews. So I just started interviewing B2B CMOs, and started to interview them. And of course, I had started the podcast five years ago to sort of get more value out of all that. And by the way, every time you sign up for a podcast interview with me, I make you sign a release that says, I'm going to write a book with your material. So let me know if you have a problem with that. Anyway, so all those B2B interviews were happening. And at the same time, we were meeting with clients, and it was clear to me that there was something broken out there. And so and I wasn't sure exactly how to solve the problem, but I thought we could. And so we identify this problem that B2B marketing and gotten incredibly complicated. So I said, all right, well, what's the simplest way to do this? Let's map out a different process, we mapped out a process, and we said, okay, 12 steps great. And then I started to talk to CMOs in small groups through like the CMO club. And I shared the outline of it and shared some things. And that started to resonate. So I said, okay, so to come along 2019, I started writing the book set with these 12 steps. And I started and continued to talk to CMO, I was about to continue to interview to get more fodder to support it. And then I was done or close to done with a book in March of 2020. Right pandemic starts, and I say, I don't know if this is a pandemic proof book. So I stopped, put the book on hold, took the 45,000 words that we had stripped it down to 15,000 words, created the mother of all blog posts, just on our website, renegade.com you'll find it sort of 12 branding things, and it's there. Immediately, that became a really hot thing. We get 400 visitors every single day from Google reading that thing. And so there was a lot of validation to that. And then earlier this year, I said okay, been through this ash -- been through the pandemic, we've seen what needs to be adjusted. Marketing is still marketing, there's principles apply, the formula still works, we've applied it to clients finished the damn book. And by the way, I had already done another 50 interviews that could sharpen it even more. So that's where we get to, that's how we get to Renegade Marketing, which is really now four years' worth the work and refinement into trying to solve this challenge of ridiculously simplifying B2B marketing.
Josh Steimle:
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Drew Neisser:
So you can't see this, but you can't see this, but it says this book was published by CMO Huddles, okay. And the idea was that as we build up this community of marketers, some of them are going to say, Drew, what's the story with book? Can you do that? Why'd you publish it? And I intend to, if that conversation happened to outsource that, all of it. But I mean, I -- on the other hand, I do think also, I can help them at least get them started. And give them a framework for thinking about how to get this done. But ultimately, so I do want to know about your service and how that works. And I worked with Girl Friday, who I thought was excellent. And I'm imagining you do something similar to what they do.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, if you know, Girl Friday theory, or if you know, scribe that Tucker Max started. That's what we do. There are a lot of others out there. And there's a lot of great ones. I would say that the primary difference between us and other services out there is we do focus exclusively on entrepreneurs writing non-fiction books that they can leverage to grow their business.
Drew Neisser:
Got it.
Josh Steimle:
And so we're very focused that way. So if somebody comes to us and says, hey, I had a great 50-year career on business. I'd love to write a memoir. Yeah, we're not the right fit for that. But if it's an entrepreneur saying, I want to write a book about my area of expertise, and I'm hoping this is a great marketing tool that I can use as the business card for my business. That's our sweet spot.
Drew Neisser:
Right. Yeah. Okay. So may or may not too many, most of my CMOs are not entrepreneurs. I will.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. I mean, it works for executive too.
Drew Neisser:
Right.
Josh Steimle:
But it's writing a non-fiction book that you can leverage. And we market it towards entrepreneurs. But I mean, if a CEO CMO comes in and says, hey, I want to write a book to build my personal brand. Yeah, that would be a perfect fit. It's just some of the language we use isn't going to match up with them, because we're talking about entrepreneurs all the time. But if they follow the steps, it's the same steps that they would need to follow anyway.
Drew Neisser:
Got it. Cool.
Josh Steimle:
So I really want to dig into this process, a little bit of testing out content before writing the book, because I think that's so key for a lot of especially first time authors, but really any author, it makes so much sense to test things out before you write it. Because you can write such a better book. Can you talk to that a little bit more?
Drew Neisser:
Sure. So, I had the outline. And I knew, and when I want to speak on it, I had three examples from interviews that I done for all 12 steps. And I sort of watched though this group, I was talking to say, 15 to 20 CMOs at dinners, and I probably it was like a roadshow. And we did like six of those. And I could see what resonated I could see. And I could go back to each of them and say, What did you take away? What was interesting to you, which part of this resonated more? Where do we need more work. And when we put it out, and by the way, I had to go, there were certain areas of the book where I was really uncertain if I was on solid ground, like metrics, getting metrics, right, or automating attentively when it comes to Martec. So I had to do a lot of extra work in that area. Because the strategy work was like a no brainer, that was the easy part of the book. So I think the big test was this 15,000 word blog post, I mean, if you know, who's going to spend, it could take you 45 minutes to read that, people do. And so that to me, if you're going to spend 45 minutes with it, and lots of folks then they'd read it, they go, I want to download this, I want to share this. And the fact that it also help Renegade be ranked on the first page of B2B branding is not a bad thing, either. But it was more the validation of the content. And it really helped. And also, as I kept reading that I would see where the weaknesses were. And I could get some feedback on that. And then so we do another interview, and then go talk to another CMO about it. And since I'm interviewing at least one CMO a week I knew that I could guide the interviews to help this time, unlike with the periodic table where it was like, take the interviews and try to make a book it was now use the interviews to inform the book.
Josh Steimle:
That's great. It's interesting how people say, Oh, we live in this society now or culture where it's all about short attention spans, you got to get your message across quick. And yet here you are putting out long form content that takes a ton of time to read. Why do you think people number one, do you think people are right about the short attention spans? Number two, why did people gravitate towards this long posts that obviously was long, they could tell it was long before they got into it?
Drew Neisser:
Right. And by the way, in the first paragraph, I warn people, it's a really long article. If you want the one pager, click here. Now the one pager, this is to me completely useless. So but lots of people wanted it, because they thought, oh, there's the -- there's the 15 second version of this. But I look at this thing. I don't know how I would implement with this little one pager, but it's fast. So I think that when you're trying to tackle something really, really big, like B2B brand strategy and how to structure as a CMO. How you go about doing business a 500 word blog post, or a seven second video isn't going to get the job done. It's not. And so, I think you just have to -- I'm not saying you don't do snippets, and you don't do, but if you've got something meaningful, that that really is well thought through, put it out there. Because the 500 word blog post, when is the last time you said I'm going to change the way I do business because of this 500 word blog post? That's what we're trying to do. We -- this is about building a community of Renegade marketers, and can't do that in 500 words, or a 1000 words.
Josh Steimle:
So do you think the idea that we're a short-term attention society, do you think that's correct or incorrect? Or what do you think's behind that?
Drew Neisser:
I think it is correct for a large swath of content. On the other hand, during the pandemic readership of books went way up, right. People are watching long form shows. They're watching, they might binge on it, but they're hour long episodes. It's not like every piece of television content is five minutes. I don't think people are given credit for their ability to read and absorb really good information. Now, we can all be Jim Patterson and write three page chapters, right, that would help, but and that by the way was one of the advantages of my first book was that it was really short chapters. So you could -- it was bite sized things. I don't think it's as if you want to solve complicated problems, and you want to give frameworks you need more time. And so look, I think people will invest the time if it's worth it. I do, don't you? I mean, you read books.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. Well, and you look at the popularity, I mean, Joe Rogan most popular podcaster in the world. His episodes are two or three hours long. And Tim Ferriss, another big one, his episodes are two hours long. And you look at Harry Potter, which that's a couple years ago, but still like, I mean, that's a bunch of kids reading 1,000s of pages of a book. And so when people say, we all have short attention spans, Mike, I don't know, do we have short attention spans? Or do we just have a lot of content that isn't worth paying attention to?
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, I mean, I, we think about that a lot. And there's so much content out there. And if you want to have, if you want to stand out, if you want to get ranked in Google, you're not going to get ranked for a 500 word blog post. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to get authority from that. But I was also thinking, I don't know if you're a fan of Dan Carlin hardcore history.
Josh Steimle:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I love it.
Drew Neisser:
They're like four hours per episode. And some of them are six hours. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, once I go down one of his rabbit holes, it's like I'm coming up 24 hours later.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. And then you want more?
Drew Neisser:
Yeah. But they're so good. That's the key. It is really about quality, and that's the thing. And if you can write a book, and it's interesting enough, and I've had fun lately, I recorded the audio version of it. By the way, I want to mention that. So I encourage everybody to record their audio book, but not necessarily use their own audio reading. And the reason is, you will find every typo. And you will find that one sentence or two sentences that you thought, Oh, that's not quite right, that your proofer will miss, your editor will miss, because the audio guy who recorded my book said he's never had a recording that didn't find a typo.
Josh Steimle:
I believe it.
Drew Neisser:
Right, but by the way, it is so hard. That was much harder than writing the book.
Josh Steimle:
Reading it.
Drew Neisser:
Reading it.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, I have so much respect for the people who do the voice talent and such. I just think, oh, man, what a unforgiving task and my new books coming out in October too. And I'm like, I got to record the audio book for this, how am I ever going to make it through this whole book? It's going to be such a nightmare. But at the same time, how do you feel about the author reading a book versus hiring somebody else to read it for them?
Drew Neisser:
So here's the reason why I decided to do it is if you're a podcaster, and you have an audience that follows you and likes you, I think it's really disconcerting to hear someone else's voice. And so that was the way I made the decision. And I also met with an audio producer, and I said, can we read a paragraph or two? And can you honestly tell me whether I'm going to be good enough at this? But you have a good voice and your audience likes you. I -- here's the thing. I don't know how many words your book is like, 45,000, something like that. Maybe more.
Josh Steimle:
Average length. Yeah.
Drew Neisser:
Okay. So that's nine hours of work, six hour and a half sessions. And then there's another, say, five minutes of outtakes, where you have to re-record certain things. It's not that bad. And you just, it's –
Josh Steimle:
For some people, that sounds like a nightmare. They're like, I got to record six hours. Oh, but yeah.
Drew Neisser:
Your producers, they're following every word, making sure you're reading it. And you're sort of, but it was another chance to read your own book. And I was what was fun for me. And this is a weird thing to say is I? That's a good story. That was a good sentence. I'm proud of that. And so I really felt like when I was done, I felt like I had done something that it was very reaffirming. And of course, this is what they all audio producers said, but he said, I was taking notes, and I learned a lot. So cool.
Josh Steimle:
So were you editing your manuscript as you did the recording? Like, were you making changes insane? I mean, or was it too late?
Drew Neisser:
No, it's too late at that stage. I mean, presumably, you've already -- it's been edited. And you've gone through copy development, you've had our proofer read every single page, and you've gone back and forth on, is it 12 or 12 written out that kind of thing. And stylistic things that you might disagree on with your proofer. When you get to the audio book, you have this, as you'll see, on page 10, you'll have to say, as you heard from page 10, or you'll have all these little things. But you -- if you want to have this thing that that the eBook reader that Amazon has it on Kindle, if you want to have this match thing, which you can do, where you can listen to it or read it in the same time, you have to read almost exactly word for word. So the only time and this is, there were like, we found five typos. And we found two sentences that just didn't make any sense to me. And we rewrote them on the fly in the audio and fortunately, there was time to get them changed in the physical copies. I mean, we're literally we're out to press on the first press proofs when I said no, don't do that. So that's a huge advantage. I mean, you know, because you is careful as approver is and as careful as you are, you're also have this urgency to get it done. You're going to miss it.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. It's impossible not to make mistakes. I mean, I've been reading the news for 20 years online. And I'm amazed how often I read a CNN article or New York Times and I find a typo in there. And I think, don't they have like three or four editors that this went through before it was published live? And yet, here's an obvious typo. We all do it.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, I found another, by the way, I did find a minor typo in my book in the physical copy just yesterday. So it's all of them, say chapter lowercase C, but one of them says uppercase C. So go ahead and find that in the book and sue me. But hopefully, you know, I think the other thing I was thinking about as you're talking about other young authors trying to get that there's no perfect book. I already know where I want to rewrite the book. And I hope that I'll get to Renegade Marketing too. And it'll be an evolved and improved edition. And I'm continuing to think about that is you just gets you learn more every time, right. So finish the book, start it and finish it and get it out there.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, done is better than perfect.
Drew Neisser:
Yes, exactly.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. So I'm curious. Did you record right there in it, in the studio setup you have there? Or did you go into a professional studio to record or?
Drew Neisser:
So I went in. So this is actually –
Josh Steimle:
And for those who are listening to this, you should go over to YouTube and then you can actually see what we're talking about, but Drew has got a pretty nice audio setup going in his home office there, it looks like so.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, I mean, I got this Heil mic, and I've got a mixer in the background. And in you know, it's pretty good quality. But for the audio book he uses, or that they use this thing, Squid FM, and he's listening at such an intense level. And this was in the middle of the summer, I had to turn, not only did I have to turn the air conditioner off and keep the windows closed and close the blinds, I had to unplug my refrigerator that I have a little office fridge in here, because he could hear the humming of that.
Josh Steimle:
He could pick that up, that's amazing.
Drew Neisser:
So even though and my rig didn't change. And the one thing I had to do was I had to have a headset on, not this just some kind of earpiece, so that it wasn't the sound wasn't coming out of the mic, because he's that sensitive. He'll get a feedback loop.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm in Arizona, and it's summer, I don't think I'm turning off the air conditioning in my house when I do my recording though.
Drew Neisser:
Well, if you have a studio where you can do it in the air -- my air conditioner is a little loud. And I know it was hot.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, yeah.
Drew Neisser:
The good news is it wasn't video. So you know, you can turn the lights out, you can wear a T shirt, you know.
Josh Steimle:
That's true. At least you can sweat it out and nobody else.
Drew Neisser:
Exactly, exactly.
Josh Steimle:
So the books coming out October 5th, which as of this recording is just a few weeks from now. What are some of your launch plans? How are you going to get the word out about this book? Or have you built a platform? Do you have an audience ready to go?
Drew Neisser:
So there's a lot of things going on. I would say, I'm a little bit of a cobblers children here, I'm a marketer and so forth. But I've got three businesses that I look at right now. I've got Renegade, we also started something called CMO Huddles in April of last year and then there's the book. So these things do come together. And I do have a platform in the podcast, which is great and big sizable newsletter audience that I've built up over the last 10 years. And a big social audience that have built up over the last 10 years. And there's these pieces come together and I'll explain that in a minute. And I'm doing a lot of podcasts. And there's already been an article in Inc. Magazine where my book was ranked number two behind Dorie, Dorie Clark's latest book, which was very nice, and there will be lot more articles and reviews because that made a big difference last time, too. A little bit of paid media to sort of provide a little halo effect against a very targeted group of people. We've built up a pretty big database of B2B chief marketing officers. And the one thing that this book is focused on is B2B. And if you look for B2B branding books, it's really hard to find there are books out there. And I, you know, Raja Rajamannar who wrote Quantum Marketing was sort of a really interesting book. He's got one paragraph on B2B. Not one paragraph, one chapter. And so I feel like B2B is often overlooked as this sort of stepchild. So I feel like between that, so if going back from a marketing standpoint, podcasts, advertising, social direct.
Josh Steimle:
Got it. And so, what are you hoping happens with the book when it comes out? I mean, how are you going to leverage this to grow your business? Is it hey, I want this to bring a lot of people to me, that have never heard of me before? Do I want to generate more credibility with the audience that I already have? All of the above and more? Tell us a little bit about what results you're hoping to see from it?
Drew Neisser:
Yeah. So last time, the book and speaking engagements sort of went hand in hand, and I went on a big speaking tour. And obviously, I'm not doing that with this book. And that's sold a lot of books. And so, it's not, I'm not necessarily looking to sell a huge quantity of books, but there is a group of people. There are 4000 B2B CMOs out there, and they all have people working for them. And that group of people, I do hope will, will read the book. And I also hope, one of the things that we're offering that's kind of unique, the hardcover is not available on Amazon. The hardcover is only available from me for $333, why? Because it comes with a consulting package. And so my thought is you read the book, you write your Purpose Driven Story Statement, you write your plan on a page, and you say, I want to talk to Drew about it, boom, book it. It's on the website. So consulting will happen. There will be some halo effect for Renegade. I have no doubt about it, but this sort of interesting coexistence here is this community that we build called CMO Huddles. And this is a community of B2B CMOs, who are members, the paid subscription. We started about with 20 subscribers in October, we have 85 as of today. And this community is helping each other as I like to share, care and dare each other to greatness. That's what's going on. And I think my books going to play a part in that, several of the CMOs that were in huddles, were featured in the book and so there's a synergy here. And what I really expect to happen is, that I'll get feedback from the CMOs in the huddles. And they'll say, you know, I'm not sure, I tried this, it didn't work as well as I thought, I want to do this, where's this framework? And I think, it's going to be sort of an underpinning and a structural thing, so what happens next? Is there a course? I hope so. Is there consulting that will come out of this? Yes, and it already has. And so, Drew, as you know, and my agency doing certain things that we talked about in the book, great, but there's a little bit more, I'm more interested in developing a bunch of people out there who know how to do Renegade Marketing, and then sort of just advising as needed, as opposed to where we've been before, where you hired Renegade to do this. And that's the hope is that there's this, you know, a kind of a movement.
Josh Steimle:
That's great. Some interesting marketing and leveraging ideas there. And you mentioned that you're already getting consulting work from the book and the books not even out yet. And I think this is one of the unseen benefits of, or at least unanticipated benefits of being a first time author is you can turn that book into attention before you even have the book published.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, it's true. You know, I'm a little bit behind, I was listening to Chris Voss, and I was listening to Douglas Burdette talking about, getting a book six months in advance. I sent my copy to him a month in advance, sorry, I just, it's sometimes you can't do everything perfect. You just got to keep moving.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, that's very true. I mean, my books coming out October 11th. And I'm still working on it. And it's getting edited right now. And like, I know, it's going to be down to the line, and I kind of got pushed into a situation. So it has to come out October 11th. There's nothing I can really do about that, unless I lose a lot of money for a marketing program I already paid for a long time ago. So it was like, well, this is what has to happen and that's what it is. I'm going to do the best I can with it and so be it.
Drew Neisser:
But you know, I really learned from Chris Voss, his thing is, he markets that book and is still doing it for years from now. Four years from there, and I think that's a really what a great lesson that was. It's like this is if you're in his is very tight. And it's such a great book besides that, but the, from the book to the consulting and, I can see how, why that's been so successful. And so I think you just have to commit that this is a four year project.
Josh Steimle:
Exactly. If you write a great book, then you've got plenty of time to market it. It doesn't have to have the perfect launch plan or else all those last, because a great books going to be a great book now or in a year or two years or three years.
Drew Neisser:
Yeah. And look, I already aspire to defining this as B2B brand strategy and B2B. There's no way it could be a best seller.
Josh Steimle:
All right, yeah. Expectations are already tempered.
Drew Neisser:
Right, but I do think that it can be within its universe. It can be really, it's going to be you know, I hope it'll be a book that will get people to pause and say, wait, are we doing this backwards? We're targeting customer prospects than customers, employees, why shouldn't and what I say in the book is, there's some radical thinking in that, right? Not surprising. Marketers have it wrong. They are targeting the wrong group first. And so, that's a really interesting thing to throw out in the marketplace. And saying, you're complicating your message. Why are you doing that? Tell me your message in eight words or less. Those are things that should stir up conversation.
Josh Steimle:
Are there any other tips directly from your book that might be applicable to the author entrepreneurs out there listening to this tips that they could use out of your book, not just from the book experience, but from the book itself?
Drew Neisser:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, one is, I think it's really important that you as an individual can sort of articulate the book in eight words or less. And obviously, you have a title to do that, but title doesn't always do it. Hopefully, the subhead will do it, but really think about that in terms of purpose, and how that connects back to you, right? And this gets back to the difference between for me book one and book two. I am purposely connected to this book here. I mean, with my very soul, and I believe that there is a need and that, it solves a problem. So that's what marketing does to it, you know, help solve a problem. And everything in the book is about clearing away the clutter and say, who do you really need to talk to? Because I think sometimes in you write a book and you say, who's this for? Think about that day one, not at the end. I don't know who will like that. Well, you know, that's a problem. Focus is your friend and I think clearing away the clutter, which is sort of the chapter number one, anybody could benefit from, you know, Marie Kondo your plan, folks.
Josh Steimle:
Yep. Perfect. Drew, thanks so much for being with us here today. If people want to reach out and connect with you, learn more about the book, where's the best place for them to go?
Drew Neisser:
Well, let's see. They could go to renegade.com and or they could go to renegademarketing.com, which is the book website, renegade.com has got all sorts of things. And then renegademarketing.com has anything related to the book.
Josh Steimle:
Perfect.
Drew Neisser:
And by the way, they should connect with me on LinkedIn.
Josh Steimle:
Yes, for sure. All right, Drew. It's been great. Thank you so much for being with us here today on the podcast.
Drew Neisser:
Josh, thank you so much for having me.
Josh Steimle:
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